


To Play The Night Watchman

by jessebee



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 18:38:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/pseuds/jessebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We go everywhere and nobody notices us.   But we see everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Play The Night Watchman

 

 

 

It was just another ordinary day – or rather, another ordinary night – when I saw them. I say night because in my job, the evening and night are a lot more familiar to me than the daylight hours, anymore. That's because I am a janitor, and I work for U.N.C.L.E.

 

Yeah, a janitor. Not the glamour job of all time, right? I know what you're thinking. Lousy hours and low pay, an uneducated doof pushing a mop and picking up the trash. And in another company, you'd probably be right.

 

U.N.C.L.E. is different. I'm pretty sure that there aren't any doofs at all working in this office, from Mr. Waverly right on down to me. This is law enforcement we're talking about here, international law enforcement, and you know what that means?

 

Secrets.

 

Lots and lots of secrets, stuff that affects the safety of everybody not only here in the good ol' U.S. of A., but all over the world. The stuff I handle every day, the stuff that goes into the trash that I take down to the incinerator and destroy; hell, the stuff that gets left out on desks sometimes, you wouldn't believe. The office folks and the agents, see, particularly the Section Two guys, they don't really notice me and the rest of the crew who take care of the place. It's like we're part of the walls, or the furniture. And they forget sometimes to keep their stuff safe.

 

So we do it for them. Everybody on this janitorial crew goes through interviews just as tough and scary as any of the Section people, maybe more, even; who knows? 'Cause we go everywhere and nobody notices us.

 

But we see everything.

 

So yeah, I was around when the Russian, Illya Kuryakin, first started working here in New York. Fresh out of the European office, he was, I think it was Helsinki, and probably glad to be out from under that nutcase Harry Beldon. Mr. Waverly must have thought an awful lot of Kuryakin even then, because, well – Russian. Here. In 1959. Not a really bang-up year for East-West relations, y'know?

 

So we watched him, sure we did, me and the crew, and Kuryakin watched us right back. He watched everything; the guy didn't miss much. But he _saw_ us, where most of the Section Two guys – and it was only guys, then – didn't. And weirder than that? He'd _talk_ to us. Maybe it was the whole "Communists liking the working man" thing, I don't know. His English wasn't great at first, and he wasn't chatty or anything, but he was always polite in a cool sort of way.

 

Then he got assigned to share office space with Napoleon Solo.

 

'Course this was way before Solo got to be CEA or anything, and the bet going around at the time was that there'd be _words_ said between him and Kuryakin, Solo being ex-Army and a Korea vet and all. But maybe three weeks later I was taking care of trash and I heard laughter coming from a few doors away. People working in this place at 2am is common. People laughing like that? Not so much. So I go and look.

 

The door's open and there's Solo, sitting on the edge of the desk with both hands in the air and a look on his face like he's trying to keep it together long enough to finish whatever story he's telling. Kuryakin, though – he's already lost it. He's leaned back in the chair almost far enough to tip it over, laughing so hard that I'd bet he couldn't breath. " _Nyet_ ," he says when he finally comes up for air, and with the smile he looks like a whole different guy. " _Nyet_ , _nyet_ , Napoleon, you are pulling my leg, as you say, yes? It cannot possibly have happened like that."

 

" _Pravda_ , Illya, I swear to you, it was exactly like that." And Solo is grinning too, like a little kid who's just attempted to make a friend and winds up getting invited up to the house for milk and cookies, even.

 

I was sporting my own smile as I went back to my broom. Yeah, they were having words, all right. East-West relations were suddenly looking a lot brighter.

 

Okay, so now let's skip ahead a few years.

 

Solo and Kuryakin got officially partnered, and got a better office, too. Reputation would have it that Solo was a bit of a prissy, fancy-suit Casanova and Kuryakin was a cold fish, but I still don't know how anybody with eyes and half a brain could've believed that. I'd lost track of the times I'd seen them limp, bloodied either literally or figuratively, through the halls. When I'd seen them help each other with a hand under an elbow, or swept quietly around one as he sacked out in a guest chair in Medical, waiting for word on the other. There weren't two other agents who'd give as much for U.N.C.L.E., and each other, as these guys did.

 

So I was cleaning, sweeping up and making notes on the light maintenance chart for Charlie so she'd know what to replace when she came in for the morning shift, and I heard laughter, soft. Different office now but same voices, and again I took a peek.

 

It was Solo sitting on the desk again and Kuryakin in the chair, but this time they leaned close, studying over something spread out over the blotter. A murmur of some language that didn't sound like English to me, and Solo bumped his partner in the arm. Kuryakin smiled and looked up. Solo reached out and brushed Kuryakin's hair, which needed a cut, out of his eyes. After a minute Kuryakin reached back and caught Solo's hand and pulled it down, and brought it to his mouth.

 

I stepped back around the corner and walked to the far end of the hall, my rubber-soled shoes silent on the floor, and took a few deep breaths, and picked my broom back up. As many times as those guys had probably saved the world, what they did or didn't do otherwise was between them and no business of mine. Everybody deserves somebody in their life, and who did those two have but each other?

 

Secrets. They're not all on paper or microfilm, but I keep them safe just the same.

 

 

fini

 

**Author's Note:**

> An inside outsider's view.
> 
> Timed-out story, originally written for spikesgirl's WORKING STIFFS series, and published in the zine of the same name, 2010. All thanks to spikesgirl for inspiration and kicks in the pants, where needed.


End file.
